


all the evidence of your vagrant life

by spock



Series: vagrant life verse [1]
Category: Sirens (UK)
Genre: Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:38:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ashley meets stuart meets rachid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the evidence of your vagrant life

**Author's Note:**

> for sirens_fic's first times and/or backstories challenge.

Begin at the beginning and then go on till you come to the end: then stop.

Lewis Carroll said that. Bit of a shit, he was.

* * *

  
Ashley spent the first day of sixth form staring down at a boy whose mouth was wrapped tight around his cock.

“Well done,” he choked out, body still wracked with tremors. The blonde moaned around his dick before his eyelids fluttered open, peering up into Ashley’s face. He stood, laboring Ashley’s pants up with the beginnings of awkwardness.

“So, can I – can we. Well, I’d really –“

Ashley cut him off before he had the chance to stutter on any further. “I don’t really do boyfriends. So.” He adjusted his trousers and buttoned himself back up just to keep his hands busy.

The blonde straightened up and brushed off his knees, cheeks heating up. “No, of course. I wasn’t implying—right.”

“Right,” Ashley repeated, if just to fill silence that was starting to settle between them. “Well.” He slowly worked his way from between the wall he’d been leaning against and the boy still standing in front of him. “Have a good rest of the year, alright?” He clapped the blonde on the shoulder and made his way back towards the front of the school.

All in all a fine example of casual sex, really.

* * *

  
Ashley has his theories about Dan. Mostly about how he has latent homosexual desires and that his way of expressing them is by bullying Ashley and others who are comfortable in being themselves. He really is just waiting for the right moment to kiss Ashley senseless and toss him onto a bed, where they’ll fuck for hours. (Dan will later come to realize that this particular bout of sex will be the best he’s had thus far in his sad little life.) And when they’re finally sated, he’ll tell Ashley how bad he feels about how he treated him. How Ashley is perfectly desirable and wonderful and anyone would be lucky to have him. Then he’ll ask if Ashley would please go out with him, with monogamy and the whole nine yards? Ashley will laugh in his face and say no, that he only does one off’s and even if he didn’t, why would he possibly want to date someone like Dan when it’s so obvious that he can do better?

* * *

  
“I, for one, welcome our alien overlords.”

The crazy who always interrupts lessons to spout pseudo-intellectual nonsense has taken the seat to his left. Ashley caught him squinting his way a few times before, but he’d just assumed that he wanted to get in his pants and left it at that. It seems he misjudged the others intent drastically. He wants to _recruit_ him.

“That’s nice?”

“I mean, if aliens do exist, they need to enslave humanity because I am sick and tired of dealing with these idiots. Everyone always goes on and on about democracy and freedom but it isn’t as if they really _deserve_ it, or know what to do with it, for that matter, because they always manage to muck it up! Look at all these useless examples of life, going around and making the absolute stupidest choices possible during any given situation, and tell me how their lives couldn’t possibly be better given that some sort of super-species was making all their choices for them. Resistance isn’t fucking futile, I say, it’s fucking needed. Assimilate these poor arseholes.” He made a sweeping gesture to encompass their classmates. Most of whom were staring at the two of them with looks ranging from confusion to outright contempt.

“Right.” Ashley tried to gage the distance between his seat and the door.

“Oh, don’t give me that confused bullshit. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You hate all of these people as much as I do, don’t even try to pretend you don’t. You make eye rolling seem like a profession. Stuart Bayldon.” He held out his hand, forcefully grabbing Ashley’s when the redhead had just stared at it, pumping it up and down. “Be my friend.”

“Can I say no?”

“No.”

* * *

  
Meeting Stuart may be the best thing that’s happened to him.

Or the worst.

It’s a toss up, really.

* * *

  
“Your eyes are really green, you know that?”

“Yes, I do own a mirror.”

“I don’t know how I didn’t know you were gay! Well, I guess I knew, subconsciously. You're that special brand of man-pretty. I would have sex with you. Ash. Ash, did you hear me? I said I’d fuck you. Bugger you! Ashley Greenwick, let’s have sex.”

“Stuart, I really, really do not want to have sex with you.”

Stuart pouts at that. “Why in the hell not? I’m desirable! People desire me! We would make a handsome – “

“Fine, then, let’s have sex.”

“Well I don’t want to _now_.”

* * *

  
Stuart finds Ashley his first real boyfriend.

His name is Jon and he works at the Tesco round the block from Stuart's flat. They date for four months. He’s so far from Ashley’s usual type that he knows the whole thing is doomed from the start, but gives it a shot anyway because he figures it’s grown up to want a healthy relationship.

Jon is slender and has dark, stupid hair that rivals Ashley’s own. He fucks like a dream and Ashley doesn’t hate speaking to him afterwards, which puts him leaps and bounds above every other bloke he’s had sex. He doesn’t mind that Ashley works strange, long hours or that his humor is dry enough to catch fire.

Towards the end, they’re practically living inside each other’s pockets. Ashley figures that was Jon’s mistake. How else would Ashley have seen another guy in bed with him when he’d popped by Jon’s flat at three in the morning, coming by unannounced right after his shift?

Ashley goes back to his dating websites and casual hookups with renewed vigor. No-strings attached and thug fantasies are all he wants now; all he ever wanted, really. Low expectations and no promises are all he needs at the end of the day.

They can’t break your heart.

* * *

  
Ashley sees Stuart through three “not girlfriends.”

They were girlfriends at the time, obviously, but once the relationships failed, Stuart claimed that he never had considered them to be real girlfriends. He didn’t need a girlfriend, nor did he want one.

Stuart’s friend Maxine says that he has intimacy issues thanks to his father’s abandonment. Ashley doesn’t know much about that, he can only piece together so much from the drunken mumblings Stuart has leaked to him, but it seems as legitimate a diagnosis as any.

Still, whatever issues Stuart may or may not have, it doesn’t stop him from barging into Ashley’s flat after each “not breakup” and commandeering Ashley’s bed. With Ashley still in it.

They’ll cuddle up and Ashley will listen to Stuart’s inane ramblings about how he wasn’t hurt and hadn’t been taking whatever-it-was seriously from the get go. He was only here because Ashley had seemed rather lonely earlier today, and wasn’t Stuart such a good friend and secure in his sexuality by giving Ashley a rugged body to keep his bed warm tonight. Ashley really needed to get another boyfriend, because he can’t count on Stuart to keep him company all the time, honestly.

Ashley knows all of this is bullshit, but he can’t just come out and say that Stuart needs to get over himself and actually try to make a relationship _work_ , because it would be the pot calling the kettle black. So he just humps Stuart’s hip a bit, pushing his dick into the shorter man’s side—which happens to be quite soft and squishy. Rugged, really?— and mewl out how happy he is that Stuart’s here on this particular night, how Stuart is just what he needed.

* * *

  
Two more days until certification and Rachid honestly fucking cannot wait. His parents had wanted him to become a proper doctor, but that is a life far too boring. He wants to be out in the field, dealing with the drunks and seven car pile-ups and the people with random shit stuck up their backsides.

The hospital where he’s set to do his training comes with a pair of local legends, which is just his luck. Apparently they have pretty damn high mortality rates and even better response times.

Jones says that they make all of the trainees who ride with them cry at the best of times and suicidal the rest. They’re a dynamic duo and Rachid just knows he’ll end up paired with them.

* * *

  
He is.

Fucking karma.

* * *

  
Rachid’s first run is set to be with some bloke called Carl. Right before he places his bag in the back of Carl’s cab, some redheaded Scot grabs him round the arm and pulls him away, yelling something placating back to Carl.

“You do not want to spend your first day with him, newbie,” his uniform reads Ashley Greenwick and he speaks to Rachid with his voice lowered, as if sharing a secret, “Fat Carl is a trauma magnet; you wouldn’t survive the day.”

“Yeah,” crows a voice from the inside of what Rachid is assuming to be Ashley’s vehicle. He looks inside the back and see’s a bloke laying down on one of the gurneys, tossing a ball up into the air, not bothering to look at them. “Fat Carl only _attracts_ trauma, he doesn’t experience it. With you in there with him it all may congregate around you and the next thing you know your dear ol’ mum’ll be down at the morgue, identifying whatever it is that remains of you.”

Ashley laughs. “Don’t scare the lad, Stu.” Rachid squares his shoulders and opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted by Stuart before he gets anything out.

That’s how the rest of the day goes: Stuart blathering on about this or that with Ashley laughing sporadically and putting in his two cents every once in a while, Rachid stuck in the middle, squirming about, struggling to find his place between them and wondering if he isn't really needed at all.

* * *

  
After one concussion, a false labor, dealing with seven drunks, and a man with a stab wound in his left shoulder, Ashley and Stuart decide to be gracious mentors and take Rachid out to breakfast at the end of shift.

They chatter back and forth, vague insults coming from Ashley in-between bites of his omelet and, quite frankly, innuendo from Stuart as he attempts to deep throat his sausage. Or maybe he's chocking on it? He can't tell at this point.

Rachid has never been this silent in his entire life. Stuart somehow manages to steal all the oxygen in the room and, while Ashley seems to be used to it, Rachid is coming to the point where he wants to strangle the man to death.

He finds his opportune moment to speak while Stuart drinks down some orange juice. He blurts out the first thing to come to mind. “It’s bloody fuckin’ impossible to find good fake bacon.”

There’s a beat of silence as the other two turn to stare at him. Ashley eyebrows climb high up on his face. “Surely it’s a small price to pay for eternal salva—“

“That,” Stuart interrupts, “is what you decided to be your opening statement? You have been silent all damn day and _that_ is what you managed to come up with? Ash, I want to take this one back.”

Rachid sputters. “F-fuck you!”

“That’s a bit better!” Stuart makes a show of clapping. “Maybe he gets better the more he talks. We saved your life today, mate, the least you could do is be entertaining!”

“We? I remember myself clearly being the one who rescued young Rachid here from certain doom.”

“What! I thought we agreed to share all good decisions after—“

“Yes, but then we said after that incident with Gethin—“

“But surely the thing with—“

“Come on, that doesn’t even come _close_ to erasing what happened last week with—“

“We agreed to never speak of that again! Oh fine, you’re right! I’m sorry for claiming co-responsibility for recruiting Rachid. Are you happy?”

“Well I sure as shit ain’t sad.”

“Anyway,” Stuart said pointedly, squinting at Ashley as if daring him to say anything else, ”I vow to find a place with the world’s best fake bacon, and then we’ll see who Rachid is indebted to the most.”

* * *

  
Stuart gets a call from his father –sperm donor, really—and his first instinct is to hang up. So he does.

He frets around the house afterward, before caving in and texting Ashley.  


>  _Where are you?_

He gets a reply four minutes later. Whilst waiting for it, he changed his bed sheets and contemplated taking cooking lessons.

>  _ghaving sexcx_

Stuart frowns.

>  _Are you almost done? Is it good sex? Can you cut it short? Obviously it isn’t that amazing, you’re texting during! I need to converse with you, as soon as possible._

The next reply takes a good ten minutes. Stuart’s house may or may not be cleaner than it once when he first rented the place.

>  _i hate you. my place, 10min._

* * *

  
Rachid knows Ashley’s gay only because Stuart told him.

“You give him a hard time and I’ll have your balls, you hear me?”

Rachid doesn’t plan on it. He’s never really known a gay bloke before—or maybe he has, but he didn’t _know_. Certainly hasn’t been mates with one before. Now that he knows, Rachid’s mind is flooded with all sorts of questions he wants to ask. He can be a pest at the best of times, but this is something different all together. This is uncharted territory! He never did get to have his experimental phase in Uni.

He realizes that Stuart is still squinting up at him, waiting for an answer, so he nods distractedly, already trying to come up with a scenario where he can ask Ashley questions to his hearts content.

* * *

  
A dispatcher’s tinny voice blares out of the radio’s speakers. “Collision on A65. Vehicle overturned. One passenger, condition unknown. Ambulance assistance needed.”

“Shit,” Ashley murmurs. “Make a left at the next light.” Stuart grunts his affirmation.

Ashley can feel the tension settle in Rachid’s body behind him. This’ll be his first real accident, and most likely, his first time dealing with death. How he deals with this will make or break him, as far as A&E goes.

They get to the scene in under six minutes, Stuart skidding to a stop. They all rush out, Ashley clutching his bag and trying to get around the front of the ambulance as fast as he can. Adrenaline already coursing though his veins.

The firefighters roll up as soon as they reach the car, and he registers himself saying, “You’re all right; we’re here now,” as he tries to work the door open. All three of them squat down to survey the damage as Stuart shines a light inside. By the looks of it, the woman may not even be alive to hear his assurance. He looks to the fireman closest to him for an update. Stuart diagnoses the patient.

Just another day.


End file.
